If Iambik were to offer a Residency in Literary Badassedness, well, it’d be a coveted position, and we’d have a lot of authors in the running.  And Lise McClendon would be among them.   She’s written seven novels, another under her pseudonym, is a member of the Thalia Press Author’s Coop, blogs, and as a rule, she writes like she means it.  It doesn’t hurt that her books are good, with a sharp edge and a cunning, lingering use of language.  Here, she chats with audiobook narrators Denice Stradling and Mark Douglas Nelson.

Denice Stradling, narrator of Blackbird Fly: First, Lise, I truly felt honored to narrate this book. When I was prepping it for narrating, I would find myself forgetting that I needed to be reading for characters, pacing, etc. … I found myself getting lost in the story, and having to remind myself to get back to the business at hand!

Narrator Denice Stradling

Something that really resonated with me about Blackbird Fly was the subtext of forgiveness. This is so NOT part of the basic premise of the book or one of its major plot points – murder, mystery, romance — but factors a little into the self-knowledge/’adult’ coming-of-age that Merle experiences. I’m specifically thinking about the ending, vis-à-vis, the Thanksgiving dinner – and that’s all I’ll say, because I don’t want it give it away! But I loved that. It’s so not what seems to be the norm in our society these days, and I found it so refreshing and lovely. How did you choose for Merle to go this route? Why was it important for you to have this in the book? I mean, it didn’t have to be there, but it meant so much.

Lise McClendon: First of all, I love it, Denice, how deeply you’ve thought about Blackbird Fly. That is one of the joys of this whole audiobook process. So thank you. Interesting that you bring up forgiveness. In families, whether your nuclear family or one you make for yourself as an adult, there are often issues that you get stuck on, things you can’t get past. For Merle Bennett, she not only has to forgive her dead husband — difficult because he’s gone — but also she has to forgive herself. That’s the ending of the book, really, that she is a bigger person because of her journey. She can say to herself, yes, you screwed up, he screwed up, but life goes on and let’s make the best of it. Also her story is mostly about the past, the things she should have done but didn’t. So the ending of the story is about the future, a brighter, more hopeful and loving one.

Author Lise McClendon

DS: Something else I really liked was Merle’s relationship with her sisters, how she shared caring and loving, but very different relationships, with each one of them. And how distinct their personalities were. I see a very modern-day Little Women here, albeit, not so little! Is this something that grew out of your own sibling relationships? And because they were so distinct, especially Annie, I could so see them having stories of their own. Any chance that this might happen?

LM: I based Merle somewhat on me because I am also the middle sister in a family of daughters. But mostly the five Bennett sisters are based on Pride and Prejudice’s five Bennett girls, the dynamics, the respect and support they have for each other despite their (vast) differences. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite novels. I tried to make each sister an individual the way Jane Austen did. I hope to write a book about each sister, a series of linked stand-alones — sometime, some day. That was the original plan. Hasn’t happened yet but I never say never.

DS: This novel is so visual: the beauty of France, especially the Dordogne, the house, the village, the wonderful and colorful characters of Malcouziac. Your excellent writing makes it all so easy to visualize. And because of that, I can so see this as a film as well. Would you have any aspirations for that? Have you ever thought of writing for that medium?

LM: I have written a few screenplays, and have a background in film and television, so thanks for the encouragement! I made a short film called The Hoodoo Artist, based on one of my short stories. So much fun. I can definitely see Merle’s story as a movie. Now to whisper in a Hollywood ear or two…

DS: And then there’s Pascal … so easy to fall in love with!! The ending of the book couldn’t be more perfect, but still… any chance that his and Merle’s story/ies might continue at some later date?

LM: Oh, definitely! Pascal is one of my favorite characters. He served his purpose in this story, which is to help Merle get past her problems, to feel lovable again, to get back to her life. But he deserves a little story of his own, don’t you think? I can still see him running around France, drinking wine in his black t-shirt. Lots of ideas, thanks, Denice.

Mark Douglas Nelson, narrator of One O’Clock Jump and Sweet & Lowdown: The books go beyond simple detective stories, including issues around race relations, abortion, and class privilege. Is this something you set out to do? And does setting the books in early World War II make it easier to do this?

Narrator Mark Douglas Nelson

LM: To write a story set in the Depression, with characters who are as real as you can make them, you have no choice but to write about the horrific problems of that era. Some problems we still have, like those you mention, Mark. To make the story relatable to a modern audience I felt I needed to make Dorie a full character. She’s been to reform school, she doesn’t have the money to continue her education, she’s lost her family: these are problems that happened all over this country, to regular people. It’s easier to look back at an era and see what the social problems were at the time, but those issues really haven’t been erased. One thing I love about mystery fiction is that you can learn about something, a time in history, a culture, whatever, while following the fun narrative of whodunit.

MDN: Your characters go far beyond just having a couple of quirks. Amos Haddam, Dorie’s boss, has an elaborate backstory of his own. On one hand he’s a fairly progressive guy for 1940, but he’s hampered by his physical problems, family worries, the War, often leaving Dorie to fend for herself. A disabled British WWI veteran in Missouri isn’t exactly a stereotype. How did this character evolve?

LM: I love the way you portrayed Amos in the audio version, Mark, with that semi-posh accent. It gives him so much life. He is a displaced person, much like Dorie. They have both lost their families though in Amos’s case it’s because he moved to America. He is sort of a father figure to Dorie — who definitely needs one — but they have to take care of each other. The Depression was an era of great upheaval. The two main characters, Dorie and Amos, reflect different aspects of that. With Amos, because he’s British, we get a connection with World War II as it breaks out in Europe, before America is involved. I wanted to try to get a picture of how America dealt with the war on the home front, before we plunged into the thick of it.

MDN: Dorie Lennox is a person no one cares about from a town no one cares about trying to solve crimes no one seems to care about, but her. She clearly has a soft spot for fellow under-dogs. Personally, I found her a more interesting person than, say, Kinsey Milhone. Is someone your model for the Dorie Lennox character?

LM: Dorie has a lot of baggage, doesn’t she? I love rich characters; they give the writer so much to deal with. She has hopes and aspirations despite her past where nothing seemed to go right. She has her own strong view of her future, she stands up for herself with or without her switchblade, she never forgets the people she’s loved and lost. She’s everything I would hope to be, in her shoes. I love Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone myself. Dorie has more on her plate than Kinsey, for sure. The Thirties were a time of the individual, when the family unit, the family farm, was often upended and people were cut loose without any support. Dorie is a free spirit, an individual, who like every good heroine sees a bigger picture than the rest of the characters and tries to help people in her life to the best of her ability.

Miette Elm: Did you have any reservations or concerns about having your books made into audio? What was the experience like for you? (You can be honest; you won’t hurt our feelings, even though the experience for us has been nothing short of delightful).

LM: The major worry in having your novel made into an audiobook is will you like the narrator’s voice. I once did a straight-to-audio short story in a western collection and have never forgotten the somewhat shocking first listen of that. With Iambik Audio the writer gets to choose from the narrator from the auditions and that makes all the difference. I hadn’t really thought of having a male narrator for One O’clock Jump and Sweet and Lowdown, but once I heard Mark’s audition I knew it was right. I love this model of all of us working together to get the best quality audiobook possible. It does mean more work for the writer; listening and proofing the audiobook takes time. But it’s all to the good.

ME: You also write under the pseudonym Rory Tate. Do you have other pseudonyms or top-secret pen names?

LM: So far Rory Tate is my only super-secret pen name! Rory’s new novel Jump Cut is out now. It’s a sexy, modern thriller set in Seattle. It would be a fun audiobook!

ME: What are you working on next? Anything that might translate well into audio?

LM: I’m working on a mainstream novel and another thriller. I’m also the co-editor of a new crime short story anthology, Dead of Winter, that would make a fun audiobook because there is such a mix of stories.

ME: Who else writing biting-edge crime fiction today is creating works that you think would work in audio? Any favourite contemporaries come to mind?

LM: I love the Casey Jones stories by Katy Munger. We need to get her into audio! A few more are Gary Phillips, Kate Flora, and Sarah Shaber. All published by small presses and in need of audio. I love audio!

Lise McClendon’s Iambik titles can be had for $6.99 each.  BUT!  It’s the season for giving, so from now until December 31, 2011, get all three books for $15.73 (that’s 25% off, for the maths-challenged).  Just add all three books to your cart, and enter the code mclendon-audio when prompted for a discount code at checkout.

Publishers Weekly says of Sweet & Lowdown: This is a book to be savored read it too fast and you might miss something.

Check them all out:  Blackbird Fly.  One O’Clock Jump.  Sweet & Lowdown.

Arjun Basu’s the kind of writer who seems to be hiding a few extra typing fingers, with the accompanying extra brains, to be able to output as much as he does, and have all that work teeming over with smarts.  The audiobook of his debut short story collection, Squishy, can be yours on its own, or as a member of our fourth Literary Fiction collection (a power collection, by my vote).  In addition, he tells stories on Twitter just about always,  and the whole Internet, give or take, has been marked as his territory.   Here he is talking with narrator Bruce Pitre and me about voices in heads and gender stereotypes, among other things…

Bruce Pirie: One of the underlying themes in the collection is the idea that our lives get shaped not so much by our conscious decisions, but rather by random accidents, things that happen at little moments of distraction or carelessness — moments that may have disproportionate consequences, just as a stray pebble sets off an unexpected avalanche. In the final story — “Chicken Scratch” — it seems to be a happy accident that the protagonist can embrace: he accepts that he has found whatever it was he was looking for in India by simply agreeing to go along with his new acquaintances, just trusting the road. But in a way that feels like a surprise ending to the collection, because in a lot of the other stories — like “The Lawn”, “Johnson’s Johnson” or “The White Pants” — chance leads to sad or even disastrous results. Is the deck of your worldview similarly stacked? Does chance more often lead to disaster?

Arjun Basu: Well, I called it Squishy for a reason. What you call “random accidents” I call “squishy moments” – those kind of throw away moments that we don’t think about. My writing seems to be about “how did I get here” and in that sense, it’s not all that uncommon as source material. My world view isn’t necessarily tragic, but I definitely find more drama in tragedy. Again, I haven’t reinvented the wheel. Perhaps my world view can best be revealed by this fact: Chicken Scratch is almost autobiography. The story more or less happened to me. It’s the only story I can say that about. The rest is fiction in its purest form. And we chose to put it last to kind of create uplift for the reader (assuming they read the book in order – in audio, they kind of have to). So, what does that say about me?

Narrator Bruce Pirie

BP: “Finding Something You’re Good At” is about a travel writer who is fed up with the predictable shallowness of travel writing. That’s a pretty interesting subject, considering that you were editor of a travel magazine (enRoute) for several years. Does this story cut particularly close to home for you? (The other travel story, of course, is “Chicken Scratch,” about a journey to India, and perhaps that too has a particularly personal connection?)

AB: Many people have cued into this and my past as an editor of a magazine about travel. I can honestly say there is some cynicism in it that is, yes, learned from years in travel and lifestyle journalism but that it is not, overall, a comment about my job as it is about work and the media in general. But that sauna exists. And it is in Mexico. And I was in it once and I counted the tiles on the ceiling. Other than that, no, this is not a comment on my life or my job or the magazine I edited.

BP: Some of these stories are told by really entertaining voices — first-person narrators lacking in certain kinds of self-knowledge. I’m thinking of “The Defeated” and “Meat Man.” They sound so real, I can’t help wondering where these voices come from. Are they based on real individuals? Or composites of a certain type?

AB: Writers live with voices in their head. Don’t they? Don’t all writers talk to themselves in different voices? They don’t? What do you mean they don’t?

BP: “The Idols” seems to be a pretty bleak portrait of a certain class of young people, drifting their lives away in a contemporary Wasteland of vacuity — the “whatever” generation. Do you consider yourself pessimistic, in general, and especially concerning today’s youth?

Author Arjun Basu

AB: I’m not sure I want to ascribe “The Idols” to a generalized view of youth though it does make a comment about a certain kind of youth. But more than that, I think “The Idols” is about ennui and in that sense it’s not so much about young people. I just heard the story in a kind of young voice and it went from there. This is a case of a story coming to me in a scene and then trying to make sense of it. And the scene was the final one, the end of the story and then I tried to figure out how these people got there. But along the way, the story became an essay on boredom.

Miette Elm: When you were listening to the audiobook, you left the following comment on your social media sites: “Just finished listening to the whole thing. I’ll say this: “The Idols” is priceless in the audiobook version. That’s a nasty filthy story.” There was something particularly sordid in Bruce’s delivery of the piece that I missed when reading the story in print. “Johnson’s Johnson” had the same effect. So, what do you think it is, exactly, that makes some of these stories carry different weight when delivered this way?

AB: Well, Bruce had good source material! No really, I think the dichotomy between Bruce’s obvious maturity (note, I didn’t say “old” and I would never even THINK of saying “old”) and the language and tone of “The Idols” made it work more. My reaction to hearing it was kind of giddy. The words, which are “bad” to begin with, and the activity of the characters, just seemed more, well, sordid is a good word for it. Yes. The whole thing felt more sordid. Dirty. I can’t think of a better way to describe the feeling. I suppose if someone like, say, Sir John Gielgud had read “The Idols,” the dichotomy would have been greater (and this is why his performance as the butler in “Arthur” works so well) but because “The Idols” (and Johnson’s Johnson) are, essentially tragedies, the dichotomy works and works well (which is why it is tragic but for different reasons, to see Sir John Gielgud in something like “Caligula”). And let’s admit this: audio is a different medium. Each and every story is bound to be felt differently than on the page. It has to be.

ME: There are a couple of odd little moments where gender clichés are perpetuated, but with the genders switched. I’m thinking of “Johnson’s Johnson’s” male equivalent of an unfortunate ‘upskirt’ moment, and Vik in “The King of Wimps,” whose handwringing at a playground with his son is written to perfection. So, was this intentional?

AB: Meaning do I think guys are the new babes? Or something like that? Did I just get in trouble? Because I felt a frisson of something. OK, gender cliches. Fuck em. I’m all for equality and so why can’t guys suffer “upskirt” moments or shit their pants or be sensitive dads? Are men and women exactly the same? Of course not. That’s stupid. But are they equal? Yes. Can women be morons? Yes. Can men? Yes. So what’s the argument?

ME: In the collection’s first story, “Thursday,” a character muses: “Would the world be more civil if we could jump-start conversations without dancing our way to the inevitable questions? Civility is just another way of getting in trouble. It’s when we most say what we don’t mean.” Do you think it’s civility – or even the failure of civility – that sets moments of trouble into motion for Squishy’s various characters?

AB: I think that’s an impossible question to answer. The character in “Thursday” believes that and so says it. My feeling, generally, is that hypocrisy is what gets us all in trouble. Not civility per se. But civility is often a mask for hypocrisy.

ME: Did you have any reservations about letting us turn Squishy into an audiobook, or how Bruce would delivery certain stories? What were they?

AB: None. Zero. And Bruce delivered the stories the way he delivered them and he did a great job. I was curious as to how he would tackle stories like “The Idols,” yes. But I wasn’t worried. Though his pronunciation of “depanneur” leaves much to be desired.

ME: Finally, we take pride in making audio of work that deserves a bigger audience than it would otherwise get. So, who are we missing? Who else is writing cutting and hysterical short fiction that you think would make great audio?

AB: My friend Mike Spry has released a great collection of short fiction called Distillery Songs that I think would work in audio. The stories are punchy and have great, great rhythm and are thoroughly entertaining. My two cents.

Squishy  is available from Iambik as an audiobook for only $6.99. The Montreal Review of Books says: Throughout Squishy Basu reflects on timeless human dilemmas, interweaving details that reveal the strangeness inherent in our modern lives. This is where Squishy shines not only as entertainment, but also as an illuminating literary work. In revealing human pretensions and the mechanisms of chance that govern our fates, Basu reminds us to treat each other with more compassion, and to take ourselves a little less seriously.

We say you should listen to it.

Do you have any idea how much raw patience one needs to be a proof-listener?   Sometimes I really wonder if our diligent and owl-eared proof-listeners aren’t secretly training for careers as stakeout spies.  Do spies have specialties?  Here’s Elizabeth Medeiros, with the patience of a thousands would-be stakeout spies:

Miette Elm: Let’s start with the obvious. What first compelled you to proof-listen audiobooks? How long have you been at it, and do you have a favourite genre to work in?
Elizabeth Medeiros: I wanted to prooflisten because that was the quickest way I could contribute. I didn’t have a microphone, nor sound editing software, and since I loved reading I realized I could still help out that way. I’ve been doing it about three years. As far as my preference, if I absolutely, positively had to choose, I’d say science fiction is my favorite, with literature a close second.

ME: What are you up to? What have you been working on lately, what’s coming up next, and how’s it going?
EM: I’ve been happily busy at Iambik with four audiobooks currently in active production: Couch, Wild Turkey, Return of the Native, and Writing Fiction which is about to restart after a little mix-up. Sometimes it’s quite a balancing act, though, if I have several long files waiting to be prooflistened as quickly as possible. But I like all the stories, and the narrators so that makes things easier.

ME: What’s the most difficult or daunting part of proof-listening work?
EM: Definitely, telling any of my readers that they have mispronounced a word. It might be a question of a slip of the tongue or British pronunciation instead of American, for example. but a few times it’s just an uncommon word the reader doesn’t know. I try to be diplomatic, luckily the narrators take my feedback in a professional manner and it all gets sorted out without difficulty.

ME: As a narrator, I’m sometimes self-conscious turning over my files to a proof-listener, thinking that it’s only a matter of time before I neglect to edit out some of my less-than-charming interjections or interruptions. We burp, we swear at passing buses or honking horns, we clear our throats, and sometimes we don’t successfully edit it all out. So (without naming names), tell me about one of the more interesting errors you’ve had to correct.
EM: I’d have to refer to my PL’ing experience at Librivox to answer this one. I was proof-listening a Jane Austen book, a dramatic reading, and one of the readers tried about three times to say a line and stumbled. Finally I heard a swear from this very proper Austen character! (Followed by the correct line. Of course.) I had to chuckle, even as I realized narrating is a lot harder than people think it is.

ME: As a proof-listener, you must be the sort of person who listens very closely to the world around you. So, in your esteemed opinion: world’s best sounds? And its worst?
EM:  The best sounds? There are so many sounds that I find remarkable or soothing. To name a couple: Music, especially the sounds from an acoustic guitar or piano, waterfalls, and when after I lost electricity after Hurricane Irene, I really liked the hum of my refrigerator when the power came back on.

The worst sounds I think are fire truck sirens, explosions and lightning strikes because you know danger or tragedy is imminent.

Elizabeth Medeiros’ most recent title as a proof-listener is Janet Woods’ award-winning dark romance Daughter of Darkness. You should enter to win Daughter of Darkness or any of our titles through Iambik’s Birthday Giveaway.  Thanks Elizabeth!